The year is 1910 and Zack wants Matthew to help him run the Colorado ranch he's built for both of them. But their father, a fire-and-brimstone preacher, is determined to have Matthew stay in college and follow him into the ministry. Caught up in a dream he cannot fulfill, Matthew's life begins to unravel. Even the discovery of an old fiddle and the solace his talent and love for music brings aren't enough to save his faltering sanity. Abandoned by his father, Matthew is spirited away to his brother's ranch. There, bolstered by Zack's tough love and common sense, Matthew begins to regain his hope and to take his first vital steps toward realizing a vision for his own future. This gripping tale, spun from memory, history, and emotion, is based on the life of the author's grandfather.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
If you stretch a rubber band far enough, it will break--pure and simple. Matthew feels as if his life is at that breaking point. No matter how many hours he spends bent over books for his classes at the conservative religious school to which his father has sent him, concepts and words blur in his mind, causing him to fail exam after exam. He's flunking out, but that's the least of his worries. What will happen when his father, a preacher of the fire-and-brimstone variety, finds out? Imagine the worst: Matthew becomes completely unstrung from the overwhelming stress of his father's expectations. During a frightening emotional breakdown, school officials cart Matthew off to a local mental institution even before his father arrives to claim him. What happens to Matthew next makes for one of the most moving stories ever written about a teen trying to find his own way after disappointing a parent. Broken, snapped like a rubber band, unable to talk, unable to care for himself, Matthew is rescued by his brother Zach--a black sheep if ever there was one--and taken to a Colorado ranch for healing. But does Zach have what it takes to bring his brother back to life? Matthew and Zach's story will challenge and warm the hearts of any teen who has felt the pressure of having to live up to a dream that was never his or her own.
From Publishers Weekly
This taut first novel takes a grim topicAthe treatment of the mentally ill in 1910Aand manages to transform it into a positive story of the bond between brothers and the slow but certain healing power of love. Anxious and eager to please his harsh clergyman father, dutiful Matthew toils away at a Nebraska Bible college, rebuffing his older brother Zack's invitation to come west to his Colorado ranch. But with failing grades and his father's disapproval looming, Matthew's terror and depression mountAuntil he catastrophically breaks down and is abandoned by his parents. Some readers may find the description of Matthew's stay at a mental hospital an unnerving interlude of strait jackets, chokings, gruel and dank basements. But Matthew's rescue and Zack's subsequent patient hand in his recovery under the clear Colorado skies is both riveting and moving. Seago is a welcome fresh voice with a dual talent for creating memorable characters and a sweeping plot that gathers readers into its momentum. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling story, richly-drawn characters and texture,
By A Customer
This review is from: Matthew Unstrung (Hardcover)
Matthew Unstrung is a compelling story based upon the life of the Author's grandfather as a young adult in the Midwest around 1910. A story of rigidly-defined family relationships and family expectations, Matthew Unstrung is filled with richly-drawn characters, each a product of his or her place in time, and each who impact upon Matthew's life, however well-intended and perhaps misguided by today's standards, and who play a pivotal role in Matthew's journey into the darkness of mental illness and ultimately out again into the light.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The I'm Bored on Sunday Book,
By Jennifer Swilley (Maywood Il.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Matthew Unstrung (Hardcover)
Matthew Unstrung was not very interesting to me. It did'nt really keep my attention however I do think that this book is a good reference to learn about Christian America in the early 1900's.
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